Tim takes over as new YMCA Norfolk chief

He has helped homeless people in the most deprived parts of London and set up a church which has attracted hundreds of young people, and now Tim Sweeting is turning his hand to helping vulnerable youngsters in Norfolk.

Norwich Evening News reporter Sam Emanuel talks to the new Chief Executive of YMCA Norfolk about homelessness, hoarding and hallucinations.

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Tim Sweeting was studying history at the University of East Anglia when he discovered Christianity - something that was to change the rest of his life.

 

After finding God, he went from a carefree student who planned to work in a bank to someone determined to help young people who had not been given the opportunities in life that other people take for granted.

 

After going on a "journey of faith", Mr Sweeting, who was born in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, in 1976, began a voluntary role looking after a house of six 16 and 17-year-olds with drug or mental health issues, and after "an interesting and eventful year", he forged his future career in the YMCA.

 

He was employed as a support worker at a 150-bedroom direct access hostel in Walthamstow, which he found "hugely rewarding", and after helping youngsters there, he moved to Ealing with his wife Anna, 30, to set up ChristChurch, a Newfrontiers church which is run in the Piccadilly Theatre on Sundays and now attracts up to 600 young people.

 

He moved back to Norwich a month ago to take up his new position as the Chief Executive of YMCA Norfolk from John Drake, who had worked in the role for 30 years.

 

He said: "I joined the YMCA as a support worker to support young people in pretty extreme circumstances. We deal with people that have been through things that would make you wince - things that we would never want our children to have to experience, including prostitution.

 

"Family relationship breakdown can be one of the factors which leads to homelessness - we had one young couple who came here after living in a skip behind Iceland during the winter when it was freezing cold because of that. There are a huge variety of issues to deal with.

 

"Some people have been sexually or physically abused, and so they come to us with extremely low self-esteem because of the environment they have grown up in, and we need to help them to value themselves.

 

"We do this by valuing them and giving them positive messages for the steps forward they have taken. They could be as simple as them paying their rent on time, because some have never had to pay rent before, or for some it might be making sure they are eating healthily. Sometimes it can be the absence of chaotic behaviour.

 

"Some problems can be brought on by alcohol, and some mental health issues cause people to hoard things - I remember one guy had stacked newspapers up in his room to about waist height.

 

"But the problems are not always as obvious as you might expect. Another guy saw bugs crawling all over the place, but it turned out that he had a problem with his liver or kidney, I can't remember which, which meant he was deficient in something and so was hallucinating."

 

The 32-year-old, who enjoys playing a variety of sports including football and has a two-year-old daughter called Sophia, plans to focus on making sure the accommodation offered is of the highest quality and increase the quantity to meet the increasing demand they are experiencing because of the recession.

 

"We need somewhere else for people to move on to, like rented accommodation, so they can become more independent," he said. "We cook for them here and they have to share bathrooms and so on. But the problem is that there are more young people than there are places.

 

"Although we have increased accommodation in the county by 100pc in the last 18 months, we have had over 40 young people who we haven't been able to accommodate because all the rooms are full, which is very hard."

 

For Mr Sweeting, the best part of the job is when people who have been helped by the YMCA come back to see staff once their lives are fully back on track. "It's incredible", he said. "It's the best feeling because they have been given an opportunity in life, albeit a bit later than we would have liked. They come back on special occasions like a wedding or the birth of a first child, because they know we will be proud of them."

Article courtesy of EveningNews24